


though we may never see eye to eye (i've paid my dues and i'll be damned)

by transgirluma



Series: i'm here in search of your glory (there's been a million before me) [2]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fusion, F/F, F/M, Multi, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 02:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18540913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transgirluma/pseuds/transgirluma
Summary: ““so maya was called by riley’s death, but riley didn’t stay dead, so now...there’s two slayers?” smackle says. “interesting. i don’t think anything like this has happened before.””or; during riley matthew's second year as the slayer, she meets another slayer, and finds out what would have happened if she'd never come upstate.





	though we may never see eye to eye (i've paid my dues and i'll be damned)

**Author's Note:**

> uuuhh ok after 8000 years here is part two !! it ended up a LOT longer than i thought it would be so uh bear with me. sage is angela's daughter in this au (despite me having an oc daughter of angela lmao sorry poppy) because angela moore deserved better (full offense to katy hart). also sorry the fight scene ended up getting cut out finals are killing me and i jsut wanted to end this so [shrug emoji]  
> also rough equivalents for everyone in this part are riley as buffy, obvs, shawn as giles, angela as jenny, sage as like.... a s1/s2 of angel cordelia, marly as anya, farkle as willow, chai as a more btvs cordy, charlie as xander, smackle as oz, zay as angel, lucas as spike and vanessa as darla (and minor appearances of missy as drusilla and harper as a sort of wesley type who uh. well. ended up six feet under).
> 
> the title comes from “what happened” by emilie & ogden, and it feels applicable to maya/riley in this au as well as luke and zay; the series title comes from “the last of the real ones” by fall out boy. please kudos and comment is you enjoyed, it means a lot to me!

**there. back again, are you?**

**before we get back to riley, let me first tell you this.**

there was a girl, a different girl. she had not walked the earth, grave-bed undone, for thousands of years. 

instead, she’d walked the earth for hundreds. 

she was once a girl, born from a mother and raised well. but. but. that is the deciding factor, isn't it? she grew up pretty, and a prettier boy lied to her.

she'd been wronged, and she’d taken her revenge (cursing him to only speak the truth was clever, even for them), and they’d ( ~~they were all humans once; they remembered what it was like to be like her. they were no longer human, not anymore. their souls had been replaced with a desire for vengeance~~ ) and they been so impressed by her skills (she hadn’t been one of them, not yet) that they granted her a talisman and called her maralin, and she used her talisman to grant revenge to those who’d been wronged as she had. she granted wishes to the letter, forcing truth upon those who dared lie. 

but maralin was not her first name, nor was it her last.

**there. now, wouldn’t you like news of riley?**

riley and shawn drive back upstate in the dog days of august. riley is a junior, taking college prep classes, and shawn doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’ll probably die before she gets to go to college. most slayers do.

the first thing that happens when riley walks in on the first day of junior year is that she finds smackle and farkle making out in the library. she mock-gags, laughing, and smackle and farkle break apart and rush to hug her. they’ve missed her more than words can say. 

the second thing that happens during riley’s first day of junior year is that she meets a new student. her name is marly evans, and she seems nice enough, but there’s something not exactly _right_ about her. something not quite human, almost, but she can’t put her finger on it. 

the third thing that happens on riley’s first day of junior year is that charlie asks her out. riley politely rejects him. 

the fourth thing that happens is that an upset charlie bumps into marly evans, knocking both their books onto the ground. the fifth is that, as he scrambles to gather his things, he mutters that he wishes riley had never come upstate, and marly looks up from her books, her face that of a demon’s, and she hisses, “ _wish granted_.”

**there’s something quite tragic about what would have happened if riley had never come upstate.**

**wouldn’t you like to see it?**

charlie blinks, and he finds himself in an empty hallway that had previously been bustling, full of students. he picks up his books, which are still on the ground, and finds a green necklace that must be the girl’s. he picks it up, and puts it in his bag. he wonders where she went.

he goes to the first class on his schedule, and the first thing that happens during the morning announcements is obituaries. he doesn’t recognize any of the names, and he’s not sure if that’s better or worse.

he sees farkle at lunch, and tells him that things are all wrong, that it was never meant to be this way, but farkle simply says, “you’ve got that right.” charlie, in desperation, gives the necklace to farkle, hoping somehow he will know what to do with it. he tries to pass it off as something that farkle can gift to smackle, but farkle vehemently denies knowing her.

charlie can’t help but feel he’s made a terrible mistake.

that night, charlie decides to take a walk, just after dusk as the sun sets, and he doesn’t understand why his parents are so insistent he stay home until. until.

he sees chai on the streets, and she wanders over to him. charlie’s surprised, because the closest he’s ever come to this before now was laughing at one of this jokes in class. she whispers pretty things in his ear and flirts with him, and charlie’s too in shock to do anything besides grin, and then, in flash, she moves faster than any human should be able to, and she has him in a chokehold. she holds him there until he passes out. 

she drags him to an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. 

there, a girl with dark-brown skin and a tall, fair boy are laughing. the girl is stroking missy’s hair, and the boy’s hands are wrapped around missy’s waist, pulling her closer, almost obsessively. the moment they see chai, dragging charlie’s body behind her, their eyes perk up. 

“what have we here?” vanessa asks, and chai smiles with a hint of too-sharp teeth. luke untangles himself from missy and retrieves charlie’s still unconscious body.

“i’ve brought you charlie gardner,” she says, and missy claps her hands with excitement and a gleam in her eyes. 

vanessa’s face is calm and unaffected. “you’ve done well, fledgling,” she tells chai.

and then missy asks, “can i have him, ‘nessa?” her tone pleading, like a child begging for a cookie, and vanessa smiles, and nods, and the next moment, missy’s face is that of a monster, and she sinks her teeth into charlie gardner and drinks him dry.

**but wouldn’t you like to know what became of the others, too?**

zay lies in a cage in the back of the factory. vanessa is biding her time, waiting for the day that she can destroy his soul or he dies. she doesn’t much care which one comes first.

smackle is the school’s brightest student. the moment that missy won, the night of prom (she’d killed everyone at prom and then, drenched in red, she walked down main street, covered in the remains of her slaughter) she knew that she needed help. she couldn’t be outside during the nights she transformed, and so she’d enlisted farkle. 

farkle is the sole inheritor of a huge mansion. (his parents were luke and vanessa’s first victims. his parents had been returning from a business trip when a car with black paint over the windows had hit them, and his father, raging, had gotten out of the car to demand insurance and yell at whoever had done this to his precious car. luke and vanessa had gotten out of their car, exchanged a glance, and then luke took his father and drank him dry. vanessa let his mother run, mocking her, saying, “i’m sure you won’t get far,” and then had caught up to her and drank her dry). farkle is on his own in his mansion now, except during the full moon, when he keeps smackle in werewolf form in his basement. he’s more than happy to keep smackle safe. they’re friends, and they never ended up dating, even though he’d had a crush on her for most of their freshman and sophomore year. vampires taking over the town has kind of distracted him from romance. besides, he doesn’t know how missy, luke and vanessa would react to a werewolf in _their_ town, but he doesn’t imagine it could be anything good.

the day after charlie tells farkle that something has gone incredibly wrong, he does not come back to school. farkle sighs. they must have gotten him. when he tells smackle this, she frowns. 

“what if there is something wrong, farkle?” she asks. “what if this wasn’t how it was supposed to be?”

“how would we know?” farkle asks. he is a man of science, and he doesn’t want to believe things unless he can see them.

“can’t you feel it?” smackle asks, “something wrong?” and it’s then that farkle realizes he does. there is something awfully, terribly, wrong. 

he shows the necklace to smackle, and they both _know_ that, somehow, it has something to do with this. 

farkle spends the week skipping classes and looking in the school library’s tomes for something, anything, that resembles this necklace, with the delicate chain and the green gem that is inset into a curving copper base. it would go much more quickly if smackle could help, but he knows that the two of them being seen together could lead to someone putting two and two together about where smackle vanishes to three nights of the month, and he doesn’t want that to happen. 

he finds it eventually. there’s a picture of the exact amulet in the book, on a demon with dark hair, next to a name written in elaborate calligraphy. “maralin”. a demon of vengeance known for granting the wishes of those who were lied to. to destroy her wishes, one must destroy her center of power. 

farkle realizes he’s overstayed his welcome at the school when he looks up and it’s dark out. if he makes it home, he’ll be lucky to be alive. 

he makes it halfway home before chai walks out of the shadows. she’s wearing a short leather skirt and high heels and farkle remembers her obituary, but seeing her like this is striking. he remembers that living chai preferred jeans and cardigans. “look who it is,” she says. “what’s a poor little boy like you doing out so late, farkle?”

farkle tries to run, and chai just laughs, grabbing him, and farkle closes his eyes, preparing for the end, and — and it doesn’t come. 

he opens his eyes. there’s a girl, holding a stake. she decidedly isn’t chai. she is standing in front of the pile of dust that decidedly _was_ chai. she has wavy blonde hair, and wears a pair of dark jeans and a leather jacket with fingerless gloves.

“sup,” she says, giving him a half wave. “i’m maya. i’m the slayer.” farkle gapes. “i’m here to take missy, luke and vanessa down.”

“wait, go back,” farkle says. “you’re the slayer? as in, _the_ slayer?” he asks. he’s read about the slayer, the one girl destined in all the world to slay vampires and save the world. he wasn’t sure if she was real or a myth. 

she shrugs. “so they tell me.” she examines her fingernails as she adds, “got called after the matthews girl died.”

“who?” farkle asks. there’s something oddly familiar about the name maya’s mentioned, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. 

“previous slayer. her watcher got possessed and killed her and her whole family or something,” maya says, her tone flat like she doesn’t give much of a fuck what happened to the previous slayer. she glances around them. “we should get out of here. you got a place i could crash?” farkle nods, and he takes her to his house. 

maya wolfs down whatever food she can find in his fridge and farkle’s heart breaks as she casually mentions that she hasn’t eaten a real meal in days. smackle sits at the table, watching maya eat, and in between bites of food, maya tells them her plan. 

it really isn’t that much of a plan. 

maya and her stake (affectionately dubbed “mr. pointy”) will go to the abandoned factory. there, she’ll find missy, luke, and vanessa and kill them. easy as pie. 

farkle doesn’t think it will be this easy, but when maya asks if they’re coming, he nods. what else can he do? smackle agrees to come as well, and after making some stakes out of what used to be farkle’s parents’ kitchen chairs, maya deems them “all ready” to go, giving smackle an affectionate head rub. smackle growls at her. maya blinks. 

“kinky,” she says, and smackle glares daggers at farkle as they set off.

they sneak into the factory through an abandoned door that maya had pulled open. they find themselves in a back corridor, lined with cells. most of the cells are empty, with bloodstains as the only remnants of their previous inhabitants. one of the cells, however, has a man in it. he’s lying down, and farkle thinks he’s a corpse until maya taps on the bars of his cell. 

“who’re you?” he asks, suspiciously. he doesn’t move.

“the slayer,” maya says. “you want to get out of here?”

“god, yes,” the man moans, standing up, and it’s then that farkle sees his face. he looks to be around their age, and something about him seems oddly familiar. maya opens his cell and tosses him a silver cross. 

the man’s face shifts into that of a vampire, and he hisses, stepping back. “what was that for?” he asks, and maya shifts, oh-so-imperceptibly in front of farkle and smackle. 

“you’re a vampire?” she asks, and he nods. she moves to stake him, and he staggers backwards. 

“hey. hey, look,” he says. “i hate vanessa and company just as much as you do. why do you think they locked me in here?” he asks, looking pleadingly at maya. 

maya sighs, nods, and he puts his hand out for maya to shake. “i’m zay,” he says. maya fistbumps his extended hand, and then on they go. 

the factory is suspiciously empty. until. until they make it to the main room. in the center of the room stands missy, luke, and vanessa. the three of them are feasting on a human, and farkle sees charlie’s corpse thrown to the corner of the room, half-rotting. 

maya sees the corpse; rolls her eyes. “typical vampires,” she says, but apparently that was too loud because all three vampires look up, and then they’re running at each other, and smackle’s wolfed out, and missy tackles smackle, and smackle’s breath is knocked out of her in a great oof, and missy’s face twists with disgust. 

“say goodbye, wolfy,” she says, and farkle can hear smackle’s neck snap. maya pulls a crossbow out of her bag and aims for luke, but luke pulls zay in front of him and then zay is gone, a pile of dust where he had been only a moment before. farkle wants to fight, but he can’t move as luke runs towards him, grabbing him and twisting his neck to the side before biting him. through the haze, farkle can see vanessa grab maya, who struggles to escape, but vanessa snaps her neck. her body falls to the floor, and farkle reaches into his pocket, and throws the amulet against the ground. it smashes, and then farkle sees only black. 

this time, when charlie bumps into marly evans, knocking both their books onto the ground, as he scrambles to gather his things, he mutters that he wishes riley had never come upstate, and marly looks up from her books, and hisses, “ _wish granted_.”

charlie laughs. “wouldn’t that be nice?” maralin blinks, touching her face, feeling only soft human flesh where she knows her face should have twisted into her demon form, and innately, from somewhere deep within her, she knows that her powers are gone.

she knows that this, somehow, has to be the slayer’s fault, and after her assigned classes, she follows the slayer into the library and slams her hands on the desk. 

“what did you do to me?” she hisses. the man sitting at the desk looks up. 

“...who are you, again?” he asks, and she turns away, ignoring him. he isn’t the one who did this to her. the slayer and her friends are sitting at the various library tables. one of them, a small lanky boy, blanches and then scrambles, running. maralin chases him, leaping on top of him. she has her hands around his throat when she feels strong arms lifting her off of him. 

“you don’t _understand_ ,” she hisses. “he _destroyed_ me.” they ignore her, and she ends up tied to a chair and then the man from the desk sits in a chair across from her. 

“who are you?” he asks, and she sighs. 

“maralin,” she says. “i granted charlie’s wish and then _someone_ had to go and destroy my center of power.” she whips her head around to glare at the kid she’d tackled. he’s rubbing his neck, and the dark-haired girl who isn’t the slayer is kissing his forehead. 

“you created a world where missy ruled the town!” the boy protests. obviously, he remembers something. probably not much, but still. she wishes she had her amulet. she could make them forget all of this. 

“don’t blame me,” she shrugs, or tries to, and then remembers she’s tied to a chair. “he wished for it.”

the man interrogates her and turns to charlie. “what _did_ you wish for?” he asks, calmly. 

“that riley had never come upstate,” he says, looking a little ashamed of himself. “i didn’t think it would actually _do_ anything!”

“shouldn’t have bumped into me, then,” maralin snarls. “i wasn’t even drawn here to grant your wish. but you had to go and touch my amulet.” the man interrogating her rubs his forehead. 

“i didn’t mean to,” charlie says, looking sheepish. “look, i’m sorry you got your power-thingy or whatever destroyed, but i didn’t mean for it to happen, so can you please stop trying to kill my friends?”

maralin rolls her eyes. “if you insist,” she sighs, and then asks, “can someone untie me?” 

**several months later, on the other side of town...**

a car with windows painted black revs into town. it slams into a car, knocking out the driver, and out of the car with windows painted black steps a tall, fair man, and a woman with dark skin and curly hair. 

“my love,” the man says as he is pulling the driver from the car. “are you hungry?” 

the woman nods. “ravenous,” she hisses, and her face turns into that of a monster, and she leans in, and drinks. the man’s face twists as well, and he drinks as well, cupping the girl’s head from across the man’s body. it’s strangely intimate — someone watching from the outside might even call it a kiss.

**but they are not the only newcomers tonight.**

another car parks in front of a small yellow house, and a woman with dyed-blonde hair and brown skin and her daughter carry in moving boxes. the daughter chooses the bedroom facing the street, and starts to settle in, and her mother takes the master bedroom looking over their backyard.

her mother waits until she is asleep and then takes a photo out of one of the boxes. well. not a photo, exactly. it’s a drawing, very old and fragile. the person it depicts is zay. granted, he is in old-fashioned clothing, but it is him nonetheless. the woman folds the drawing up and slips it into her wallet, and her daughters do not wake. 

**and in another part of town...**

a blonde girl sits at a bus station, wearing a leather jacket and fingerless gloves. it is dark, and the moths flirt with the lights. she has only a backpack, which sits beside her. a girl with brown hair sits down beside her. 

“hey,” she says. “i’m haley.” she wears a leather skirt, fishnets, and a velvet crop top, despite the fact that it is winter in new york, and there’s a light coating of snow drifting from the sky.

“hi,” says the blonde, not looking up from her phone. 

“do you have somewhere to stay?” haley asks, and the blonde shakes her head. haley’s face twists into that of a monster. “ _good_ ,” she hisses, and the blonde does not look up from her phone as she pulls a stake out of her bag and shoves it into haley’s chest.

“whoops,” the blonde deadpans, before getting up and walking away from the bus station.

**this is not the last time you will see the blonde. do not forget her.**

**now, don’t you think it’s been a while since we heard from shawn?**

shawn is shelving books when the library door opens and a woman walks in. she has dark skin, bleach blonde hair and she’s _gorgeous_. he drops the book he’s holding. 

“can i help you?” he says, realizing he sounds like a complete idiot. the woman smiles. 

“hi,” she says. “i’m angela. the new english teacher.”

shawn extends his hand for a handshake. “shawn. the librarian. very pleased to meet you.” 

**aren’t they adorable?**

**if you must know, this is only the beginning of their story.**

farkle takes his seat in third period english in class and notices a new girl in his english class. there’s a new english teacher as well, to replace the one killed by a demon last week. “hello,” she says. “i’m ms. moore. i’m pleased to be here. now, if you could all go around and state your names, that would be lovely.” the class does as she instructs, and farkle learns that the name of the new girl is maya hart. at lunch, farkle will learn that there is another new girl named sage moore. his mind wanders as the class discusses the catcher in the rye, and he finds himself levitating a pencil, just for practice. ever since maralin (now a mortal living as her false identity marly) lost her powers and tried to attack him for taking her powers away, he’s become increasingly fascinated by magic and what it can do. sure, it’s not science, but it is almost scientific in a way. 

unfortunately for him, ms. moore calls on him for the next question, and farkle’s pencil drops to the desk with a clatter. “can you repeat the question?” he stutters, but then the bell rings, and farkle is saved. 

as he’s gathering up his things to leave, ms. moore stops him. “farkle, is it?” she says, and farkle nods. “be careful,” she warns. “magic isn’t something you should play around with.” farkle says nothing. he doesn’t know what _to_ say. ms. moore then turns around and begins writing on the board. farkle grabs his backpack and flees. 

after school, riley storms into the library. “someone,” she says, slamming her textbook down on the library counter, “has been slaying in my town.” shawn pops his head out of his office. 

“and you’re concerned why?” he asks, raising one of his eyebrows. “i’d think you’d be grateful for the help.”

“i am,” riley says. “but i want to know who it is.”

farkle, charlie, chai, smackle and marly enter the library, carrying various backpacks. “what’s up?” charlie asks, and shawn sighs. 

“someone else is slaying vampires,” he says, “and riley’s upset about it. do any of you have any idea who it might be?”

“i am not upset,” riley protests. “i’m just...concerned. and irritated.”

“most people would qualify that as being upset,” farkle points out, and riley glares at him. “but there were two new girls in my english class today. either one of them could be the slayer.”

“and a new teacher,” charlie points out. shawn blushes red, and smackle looks at him quizzically. 

“do you know her?” she asks, and shawn shakes his head. 

“angela? um. i mean ms. moore? we’ve met,” he says, trying not to seem flustered, and failing miserably. this will come back to bite him in the ass later, he thinks, judging by the smirk on charlie’s face. “anyway, tell me more about these new girls.”

“well, one of them was ms. moore’s daughter, presumably. her name is sage. i'd say it's fairly likely that she’s the slayer,” farkle says, as though he's reciting scientific facts. 

“why?” shawn asks.

“well, she came here with an adult much older than her, which is how riley came, and we don't know for sure that they're related,” smackle explains, finishing farkle's thought for him. they do this sometimes. riley thinks it's equally cute and sickening at the same time.

“there's only one slayer,” shawn points out. “and since riley is still here, whoever is slaying vampires can't be a slayer.”

“but what about the other girl?” she asks. 

“the other was named maya,” farkle says. marly’s face lights up. 

“maya was the name of the other slayer. when charlie wished riley had never come upstate,” she says, voice bright. she seems glad to have been able to contribute for once. 

“but i’m not _dead_ ,” riley points out. 

“you were,” chai says, and everyone looks at her in surprise. “what? she was.”

“and you didn’t think this was important to tell us?” farkle asks, incredulous. chai shrugs. 

“we had bigger things to worry about then,” chai says simply, as though this should be obvious. shawn will grant her that they did have to kill the vampire that was trying to destroy the entire town at the time, though he does very much think she could have at least mentioned it afterwards. 

“so maya was called by riley’s death, but riley didn’t stay dead, so now...there’s two slayers?” smackle says. “interesting. i don’t think anything like this has happened before.”

“it hasn’t,” shawn confirms. “seeing how the two of them interact should be interesting.”

**wouldn’t you like to see them meet?**

**too bad. we have other things to see at the moment.**

“maya,” angela says the next day after class. maya is leaving and she pivots around, her face a mask of indifference. 

“yes?” maya asks, her lips in a pout. she shifts on her feet and adjusts her backpack and if angela didn’t know better she’d think maya was scared.

“you just moved her as well, right?” angela asks, feigning indifference and pretending she hadn’t seen the girl curled up on a park bench last night. maya nods, and angela continues, “who did you move here with? your parents?” her voice is gentle, because she knows the truth. 

“grandma,” maya says, and angela can tell the lie falls off her tongue easily. “dad took off when i was nine, mom went to l.a. for pilot season when i was eleven and never bothered to come back.”

“can i speak to her?” angela asks, and maya won’t look her in the eyes. “there’s no grandmother, is there?” she asks after a long silence.

“there was,” maya mutters. “died when i was thirteen.” she shifts on her feet, as though she’s trying to get away. to run. her bulky backpack hits the desk, and angela realizes that all of maya’s possessions must be in that one backpack. 

“who have you been living with?” angela asks, and maya won’t look her in the eyes still. 

“motels, mostly,” maya admits, though the way she looks angela in the eyes makes angela pretty sure she’s lying, but she doesn’t want to pry just yet. angela shakes her head. 

“absolutely not,” she says, firm. maya blinks. 

“what?” maya asks, her voice a mix of confusion and insolence. 

“you’re coming to live with me and sage and clementine,” angela says. “i cannot let you live on the streets or in some shitty motel.”

maya blinks again. “you’re not my mother,” she says accusingly, and angela knows that even though she seems indifferent, her mother’s loss is still a gaping wound. 

“i’m not,” angela admits. “but if sage was in your place, i would want someone to take care of her.” her voice is gentle but she does not waver. she is strong in this.

“okay,” maya says, relenting slightly, and then the bell for the next class rings, and she bolts from angela’s classroom. 

**after school, in the library...**

“we have a problem,” zay says, walking into the library where shawn and company are attempting to figure out what demon is harassing the swim team (minus charlie, who has a shift at his father’s garage this afternoon, and minus riley, who is doing recon at the pool). he walks over to the table where farkle and smackle sit and wedges himself next to smackle.

“i know,” shawn says. “what do you think we’re trying to solve?”

“not that problem,” zay says. “vanessa and luke are here.”

“who’s here?” riley asks, walking in, and shawn sighs internally. he hadn’t told riley any more details of zay’s past than she’d needed to know, and at the time, that had excluded luke and vanessa.

“vanessa is a vampire thousands of years old,” farkle says, and shawn doesn’t even know how he knows this. 

“she’s zay’s sire,” smackle adds, and then, at shawn’s glare, says, “what? we did research.” smackle and zay are holding hands, and his thumb brushes over her knuckle, and shawn highly doubts this research was book research. 

“luke was missy’s progeny,” zay says. “missy split off from luke and vanessa a decade or so ago, and no one knows why, really.” he looks down at the ground before adding, “and i left them when i got my soul.”

“hello?” someone asks, and shawn looks over and sees angela. “is this a bad time?” she asks, and shawn shakes his head. 

“yes? no. i mean, it’s a fine time,” he says, and she walks over to the library counter. a girl around riley’s age follows her, and shawn presumes she must be sage. “do you have - ” she pauses then, noticing the book on the counter. “vampyr?” she asks, and shawn scrambles to think of a lie in time. 

“um, it’s a fantasy novel i’m, um, reading,” he says, and grabs it away from her before she can look inside and see that it is not, in fact, a fantasy novel before putting it under the counter. “do we have what?”

“do you have enough copies of othello for a class?” she asks, and shawn blinks. 

“i’m not sure,” he admits. “let me check the back.” he heads into his office where the library catalogue computer is.

“okay,” angela says, and turns around to check with her daughter, but instead she notices zay, still wedged next to smackle. “ _you!_ ” she hisses, and zay scrambles up, wrenching his hand away from smackle’s to get away from her, to keep ms. moore or whoever or whatever the entity inside her that recognizes him away from smackle. honestly, it could be either. the slayer’s around, so who knows what could be happening?

“mom?” sage asks, voice showing a hint of fear. “mom, who is he?”

angela’s eyes are dark as she rips the delicate gold cross off her neck. “isaiah,” she says.

“he’s not isaiah,” smackle says, standing up. “sorry, ms. moore, but this is zay, and he’s our friend. he’s my _boyfriend_ ,” she pleads desperately.

“you may think that,” angela says, eyes cold. “but he’s a vampire, and he’s thousands of years old, and he preys on innocent girls.”

“i mean, i did do that,” zay admits, backing away from angela. “but i got cursed with a soul! killed the wrong girl!”

angela stops in her tracks and tilts her head in confusion. “what was her name?” she asks. 

“nell!” zay practically yells. “her name was nell!” angela blinks and she smooths her skirt, walking back to the library counter, acting as though nothing has happened. 

“pardon my language,” chai says from her position painting her nails on one of the library tables, “but what the fuck just happened?”

“mom?” sage asks, looking confused. “what do you mean, he’s a vampire?”

“don’t worry about it, sage,” angela says, and sage starts to reply, but is cut off when shawn emerges from the back room and looks around.

“what’s going on?” he asks, and zay points at angela. he’s taken a seat behind smackle, who, shawn notices, has partially transformed, something she only does when stressed or in danger. her nose is longer, forming into one that half-resembles a dog, and he can see small tufts of her ear fur poking out from underneath her hair, and her teeth are peeking out of her mouth, crooked and oversized, as though they were made for a dog and not a girl.

“your girlfriend just tried to kill me!” he shouts, indignant. riley thinks he has a right to be indignant about the whole thing, all things considered. 

“first of all,” shawn says, “she’s not my girlfriend. second of all, what?”

“i don’t know. she was all going on about how i was a vampire and i preyed on innocent girls,” he says. “which, sure, i _did_ , but i don’t do that anymore. you guys know that,” he pleads, and shawn can hear the very real note of fear in his voice.

“yes,” shawn says, and looks at angela. 

“honest mistake,” she says, and farkle stands up. smackle growls, low and deep in the background. shawn can understand their anger, but he would also appreciate not having to clean up a mauling in this library tonight.

“the truth, please,” he says, and angela sighs. 

“fine,” she says. “nell’s sister was one of my ancestors, and they cursed zay, and the oldest women in my family are always tasked with watching to see if isaiah breaks the curse, and if he does, we’re supposed to put it back. and seeing him with isadora, i just. well. jumped to conclusions.” sage looks stunned. shawn pulls her out a chair, and she sits. angela continues to stand, leaning by the counter. 

zay nods a little, as though he’s considering this. “fair enough,” he says. 

riley blinks. “you’re okay with the fact that she just tried to kill you?”

“well,” zay says. “it was an honest mistake.” he pauses here and looks around the room. “and, let’s be honest,” he continues. “i was a real dick when i was soulless.”

“most vampires are,” chai points out helpfully. “that’s kind of why, we, you know, slay them and all that.”

“wait, go back,” sage says, still looking minorly stunned by this whole thing. “you people slay vampires? vampires are real?”

zay shifts his face into that of a monster and he grins. “this real enough for you?”

sage blinks as zay’s face returns to normal and he laughs at the stunned expression on her face. “don’t tell me werewolves are real too.” 

smackle stands up, looking sheepish. her face still echoes with the resemblance of wolfish-ness, and says, “well, actually...”

“oh, god,” sage murmurs, putting her head in her hands. 

shawn looks to angela and then to everyone else, and sighs. “well,” he begins. “does anyone have any ideas on what we’re going to do about luke and vanessa?”

“are they vampires as well?” angela asks, and shawn nods, but before he can say anything angela cuts him off. “i have the spell that returned is - zay’s soul to his body,” she says. “there’s no reason i couldn’t do it again.”

“but how would we do that?” marly asks, ever the realist. “it’s a good idea and all, but...” marly trails off here. shawn thinks she must not want to go into the gory details of what luke and vanessa have done. 

smackle looks down at the floor and then says, “but luke alone has killed four slayers, but not before torturing them all until they were begging him to kill them. vanessa has killed seven, and missy had killed at least three, and isaiah had killed five. and that’s not even counting the girls that were thought to be potentials that they were hunting for sport for a solid decade there in the late nineteen-thirties. so we can’t send riley in there with only a _spell _to back her up. she’ll die.”__

__riley shrugs. “i died once,” she says, and then adds brightly at sage’s horrified look, “didn’t stick.”_ _

__“that reminds me,” farkle says. “we should find maya. wouldn’t want her to get any false ideas about whose town this is.” he raises his eyebrows at riley as he says this last part, and she laughs._ _

__“maya?” angela asks. “as in maya hart?” farkle nods, and angela’s face is somber. “she didn’t have anyone to live with, no family to speak of, and so i invited her to live with me.”_ _

__“oh, shit,” shawn mutters under his breath. “that means harper must be dead.”_ _

__“who?” riley asks._ _

__“harper was a watcher who was assigned to some mysterious case a few months back. now that we know about the existence of a second slayer, it just stands to reason she was maya’s watcher. and if she’s in town alone, that can only mean...” shawn looks down and does not finish his sentence. no one else does either._ _

__“wait. i have an idea,” sage says. she’s removed her head from her hands and now rests her cheek on her fist. “zay was one of these bad guys too, right?” she asks, looking to her mother for confirmation, and angela nods. “so if he used to be one of these bad guys, why don’t we just send him in to get information? he can pretend to be evil again long enough to get us the info.”_ _

__zay shrugs. “i can try.”_ _

__**let’s see what happens when he does, shall we?** _ _

__vanessa and luke are living in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town._ _

__“what do we have here?” luke murmurs as zay creeps out of the shadows._ _

__zay ignores him. “vanessa,” he says breathlessly. “long time, no see.”_ _

__vanessa looks him over cooly. “through no fault of my own,” she says, and zay dips his head._ _

__“of course,” he says, and then turns to luke. “the slayer here is just your type. sweet little brunette.”_ _

__luke raises one eyebrow. “really?” he says, sounding interested, and zay nods. he hates giving riley up like this but, well. luke was bound to find out sooner or later, so. “been a long time, isaiah,” luke says, before pausing dramatically, and then, changing the subject, asks “what have you been doing?”_ _

__“oh, you know,” zay says. “evil things. murdering people. all that.” he’s pretty sure that he doesn’t sound at all convincing._ _

__vanessa looks critically at him. “why don't you have this town under your thumb?” she asks._ _

__“well, you know. i've been pretty busy lately,” he laughs. he’s trying to sound evil. he can tell it's not working. “so what are you guys up to? what's your plan?”_ _

__“there's a pep rally before the next big football game,” luke says. “we're planning to turn all the students. and their parents won't stand against their own children.”_ _

__vanessa smacks luke in the arm. “idiot,” she hisses. “we don't know if we can trust him.”_ _

__“of course you can. it's me,” zay laughs nervously — he's never gotten the hang of this pretending to be evil thing — and then says, “well, i’d, um, better be going. evil things to do, and all that,” he laughs, and backs out of the warehouse as fast as he can._ _

__**well. wasn’t that amusing?** _ _

__**meanwhile, riley and maya meet for the first time.** _ _

__maya walks into the library, looking for angela._ _

__“is angela here?” she asks shawn, in a bored tone of voice._ _

__shawn, back in his office, doesn't reply._ _

__“no,” says riley, sitting on the counter. she’s doodling on a post-it, using all of the ink in the highlighters shawn had left out for students to use to study (with a note to strictly limit their use to their notebooks that was mainly ignored)._ _

__“who’re you, anyway?” maya says, rolling her eyes._ _

__“i'm riley,” riley says, swinging her legs back and forth. “you?”_ _

__“maya,” maya says, as she's turning to leave. riley's eyes widen, and she falls off the counter._ _

__“wait!” she yells. “i'm the slayer!”_ _

__maya turns around. “what?” she yells back. “i'm the slayer!”_ _

__“well yeah you are but i am too because i died for like ten minutes before chai resuscitated me or whatever so we’re both the slayer now we’re going to be such good friends - ” riley yells, and maya’s pretty sure she didn’t stop to breathe once during that whole sentence._ _

__“slow down,” shawn says, emerging from his office. he’d heard riley fall, and had come to investigate, but he sees the little blonde girl and his heart breaks, a little bit. he can tell by the look on her face that she feels like she’s been abandoned once again and that used to be him that was him for so long — he shakes his head. this isn’t the time._ _

__“there's two slayers?” the blonde girl asks. she's obviously having trouble processing this. shawn nods._ _

__“due to a technicality - ”_ _

__“i died for like, two whole minutes,” riley interjects brightly. the blonde looks vaguely horrified._ _

__“that technicality,” shawn amends. “there are two slayers now. you, and her.”_ _

__**two slayers. unprecedented.** _ _

__**but aren’t you wondering, how, exactly, riley and company intend to save the town this time?** _ _

__“they’re going to turn all the students at the pep rally,” zay informs shawn, at the next strategy meeting, which is usually just everyone pretending to do their homework in the library after school._ _

__“how are they going to get in?” asks marly, ever the pragmatist._ _

__“i don’t know,” says zay. “there’s only so many times you can say you’ve been doing ‘evil things’ before they realize you’ve still got your soul, and lock you up for eternity, or whatever.”_ _

__“actually, if you’re referring to the universe where riley never came upstate, they were just - ” marly begins, but zay cuts her off._ _

__“i don’t want to know,” he says firmly. marly frowns, but shawn cuts her off before she can say anything more._ _

__“so what are we going to do about the vampires?” he asks. they need a plan of attack for this to work._ _

__“same thing we always do,” charlie replies. “slay them. duh.”_ _

__“thank you for that contribution,” shawn says dryly. “i meant, there will be panic if they attack at the pep rally, and we don’t know how many of them there are.”_ _

__“we can space people out strategically. we can sit spaced out and each of us can try and protect students in that area,” marly suggests._ _

__“that’s...actually a good idea,” shawn says. “but we need riley and farkle, and preferably maya to be on the floor. riley and maya to keep farkle and angela safe while they carry out the spell, and farkle to help angela carry out the spell.”_ _

__smackle blinks. “who’s angela?”_ _

__shawn turns approximately three hundred shades of red. “i meant ms. moore.” he continues, ignoring the snickers by at least three of the assembled teenagers. “the only people on the floor during the assembly are cheerleaders, the football team, the band, and teachers. ms. moore can get farkle onto the floor, but we need both riley and maya on the floor too. ideas?” he says, looking at the teenagers._ _

__maya looks up from her notebook where she’s been drawing the entire meeting. “we could always join the cheerleading team,” she says, tone bored and sarcastic, and riley’s eyes light up._ _

__“yes!” she squeals, and maya blinks at her._ _

__“that wasn’t a real suggestion,” she says. “i was being _sarcastic_.”_ _

__“nevertheless,” shawn says. “it was a good idea. since savannah jenkins and samantha schwartz vanished last month, the cheerleaders are holding tryouts this weekend. i’m sure with your abilities, the two of you could easily make the squad.”_ _

__**won’t it be fun to see how that goes?** _ _

__“we made it!” riley squeals._ _

__“yay,” maya deadpans. she’s regretting pretty much every life choice she’s ever made that has led up to this point. she slips on the uniform for the first time (it’s scratchy, and tight in strange places. she doesn’t think she likes it). riley, on the other hand, is grinning like someone’s just told her that there was a cat moving in down the street. maya's not exaggerating — shawn had told riley that their new neighbors had a cat, and riley's face had lit up like a christmas tree._ _

__maya wants to kiss her._ _

__she closes her eyes and murmurs a prayer, and then she _does_._ _

__riley takes a step back after a moment, blinking. “what was that for?” she asks, her doe-like eyes blinking frantically._ _

__maya shrugs. “hey, if we’re going to go out there and die, i figured i might as well do that first.” riley grins, wrapping her pinky finger around maya’s._ _

__“you’re so pretty,” she murmurs, softly, from where her head rests on maya’s shoulder._ _

__maya smirks down at her. “glad i kissed you?”_ _

__riley nods. “let’s go out there and kick vampire ass,” she says, her face somber, and maya nods, and they walk into the pep rally with their fingers interlocked._ _

__**wouldn’t you like to see how they do against two ancient vampires?** _ _

__the vampires strike during the marching band portion. maya catches a glimpse of the first attack out of the corner of her eye. a dark-skinned vampire — vanessa, riley realizes. she doesn't know how she didn’t know what she looked like until now — grabs their classmate darby’s hair and then uses it to twist neck sideways and sinks her fangs into her neck. she hears the girl’s best friend, sarah, scream, and then there’s panic._ _

__riley and her friends move like a well oiled machine. angela rushes onto the floor, parting the crowd of terrified students like the red sea. she begins to pull candles and herbs out of her bag. farkle, following behind her, pulls a can of spray paint out and begins painting a sigil on the floor. shawn pulls stakes out of his satchel and tosses them towards maya and riley._ _

__maya lets go of riley’s hand from her spot on the pyramid, catching the stake, and dropping to the ground in a crouch, and riley, who was mid pyramid toss when the pyramid fell apart due to panic, flips and lands on her feet, something that _surely_ would have broken both her ankles if she wasn’t a slayer, grabs the stake that was rolling towards her feet. _ _

__“hey!” riley shouts, and a taller, male vampire, looks up from where he’s trying to sink his teeth into a short boy’s neck. “luke! isn’t it me you want? aren’t i ‘your type?’” she asks, a smirk on her face, and shawn wants to scream, to say ‘riley this is _ **DANGEROUS**_ do you know how many slayers he’s killed’, but another vampire begins to rush angela, and shawn crashes into the vampire with his entire body weight. angela looks up at him and smiles. _ _

__shawn gives her a thumbs up from where he’s lying, out of breath, on top of a pile of ash that used to be a vampire. angela laughs, and shawn thinks this is the closest to first base he’s been in years._ _

__luke advances on riley. “my, you _are_ pretty,” he croons. “and you _are_ just my type, too. did isaiah tell you that?” and something in riley’s heart twists. she didn’t think this through — a little voice in her head is shouting ‘ _when have you thought anything through ever?!?!?_ ’ but she ignores it and — and it’s at that moment that something hits him. well. not hits him, exactly — it’s as though something inside him has suddenly given him a crushing migraine. riley doesn't know what to do but stare._ _

__**do you know what it feels like to have your soul returned to you?** _ _

__losing it is very easy, like slipping off a seal skin is for a selkie. like losing a outer layer of clothing on a hot day. feeling ~~becoming~~ freer._ _

__but returning it is much harder — it’s like sewing that skin back on, and you feel every stitch._ _

__**painful doesn’t even begin to describe it.** _ _

__**but enough about that. wouldn’t it be nice to see if they defeat vanessa?** _ _

__**too bad. you’ll have to wait.** _ _

__zay sees luke collapse and rushes over to him. “you good, bro?” he asks, slipping an arm around luke’s torso and helping him out of the gymnasium and into the library._ _

__luke groans. “did i — i killed — everything feels fuzzy,” he mutters._ _

__“yeah, well, that’s what happens when you get your soul back after two centuries or so of not having it,” zay says, a slight smirk crossing his face._ _

__“i...what?” luke murmurs. “did i really do all that?”_ _

__“yup,” zay says, sounding slightly too cheerful about the whole thing, in luke’s opinion. in _zay’s_ opinion, however, he sounds the perfect amount of cheerful, because decades after kicking him out of their coven, luke also has a soul now. _ _

__by the time luke gets himself together and he and zay go back to the cafeteria, shawn is standing over a pile of ash, a stake in his hand. angela throws herself into his arms, and riley wraps her arms around him and hugs him in relief._ _

__moments later, zay finds himself caught up in a group hug with the whole gang and shawn and angela, and he realizes he hasn’t felt this warm since he was alive._ _

__**well. isn’t that sweet?** _ _

__**but wouldn’t you like to see what happens next?** _ _


End file.
